


i like the dirty rhythm you play

by akaiiko



Series: Zutara Month 2017 [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bartender!Zuko, Drummer!Katara, Even More Questionable Attempts at Flirting, F/M, Questionable Attempts at Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 09:39:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13051392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaiiko/pseuds/akaiiko
Summary: “How does it go? Save a drum bang a drummer?” Zuko falls in love with the girl in the band.





	i like the dirty rhythm you play

**Author's Note:**

> _for zutara month 2017, day seventeen, dancing_
> 
> be the awkward zuko content you want to see in the world.

Most of the bands that come through the Jasmine Dragon are on the decent side of neutral. Clientele’s upscale enough that they won’t tolerate the shittier garage bands, but mostly it it’s got a good enough beat they’ll dance to it. The alcohol probably helps with that.

Gaangsters falls on the okay side of good. Crowd’s responding accordingly. It’s a little more experimental than any of them are used to but it’s working.

It helps that the band’s engaging. There’s the girl on guitar who’s killing it and has flipped off at least nine people since the set started. A lead singer with a decent voice and terrible jokes. A boy on tambourine who pulls off acrobatics for reasons unknown to man or god. And the last person in their little ensemble, the drummer, who in a normal set up would be the lead singer.

Zuko can admit he’s mostly interested in the drummer. Not because she’s pretty, though she is with her long curling hair and her vivid blue eyes, but because she’s taken no shit. First sight of her had been her with an amp in her arms, strain highlighting the taut definition of her biceps, as she chewed out a guy from another band for trying to cop a feel. Only gotten better from there.

Right now she’s intent. Focused on the beat she’s pounding out for everyone on the dancefloor. There’s never any hesitation in her. Drumsticks come down with vicious precision and he’s pretty sure she’s broken at least two since they started. It’s beautiful.

“I’d like a cranberry vodka?” Reluctantly he tears his eyes away from the drummer to alight on a girl at the bar. He’s got a job to do. He does it now on automatic. After nearly three years of working part time at this particular bar he knows how to do most requests on muscle memory alone. This girl watches him from beneath her eyelashes, almost coy, and waits until he’s pushed the cocktail across the bar to her. Then she pulls out some money from her cleavage and says, “You have a break soon?”

“No,” he says. Short, to the point, so it can’t get misinterpreted.

Someone claps his shoulder. “You can take your break now, man.” Holding back a wince, he looks over his shoulder to see Suki giving him the kind of shit eating grin that makes him fear for his soul.

The girl on the other side of the bar lets out a delicate giggle. Most of his life he didn’t have to worry about girls coming onto him. Scar scared them off if his perpetual scowl didn’t. Kind of girls who come to the Jasmine Dragon take it as a challenge. Maybe he could’ve escaped. But now Suki’s thrown him so far under the bus he’s breathing from the exhaust pipe.

Panic begins to set in. Vaguely he hears people cheering. Why are they cheering. The girl is leaning across the bar. Suki must’ve made change for her because she’s slipping it back into her cleavage. “My name’s Jin,” she says.

“Hey, Zuko!” Automatically he looks toward the sound of the voice. It’s the drummer, sweaty and grinning, hands planted on the bar. “Can I get a water?”

Zuko beats Suki to the fridge where they keep water for the performers and pulls out a bottle. Normally he’d sling it down the bar and let the person catch it. This time he walks it all the way down. It’s not running away if he’s helping a performer. It’s _not_.

“Thanks,” she chirps as he hands the bottle of water over. Their fingers brush and he tries not to notice how warm she is. Cracking open the bottle, she downs half of it in the space of twenty seconds. Swipes over her mouth with the back of one hand. God, she’s still grinning. “You need help escaping from the girl down at the other end?”

Reflex makes him check over his shoulder. Jin is still at the bar, raking her eyes down him in a way that make him regret wearing this pair of jeans tonight. Before their eyes can meet he turns back to the drummer. “No. It’s. It’s fine.”

Both of her eyebrows go up. “Uh huh.”

A blush crawls up the back of his neck and he coughs awkwardly. There hasn’t been a whole lot of time for him to imagine how this would go, but this still isn’t how he imagined it going. But she’s smiling like they’re both in on the same joke and that has to count for something. “What did you have in mind?” he asks, barely containing a wince. Then, almost in afterthought, “And why do you want to help me?”

Hard to say but he thinks she blushes as she downs the last of her water. Won’t quite meet his eyes as she says, “You helped me earlier.” Reaching up, she tucks some of her hair behind one ear. It’s almost a nervous gesture.

“That’s different,” he says.

“No, it’s not. You nearly got into a fist fight to defend my honor—” which she had promptly ended by threatening to brain the other guy with her amp “—the least I can do is chase off a pushy girl by dancing with you.”

Somehow it’s easier to agree with her than it is to argue. By now Zuko’s learned that most things in life don’t come easy and he wants this one thing to be easy. "I’m going on my break,” he tells Suki.

Then he lets the drummer lead him by his wrist out onto the dance floor. Puts his hands on her hips when she tells him to. Lets the heavy bassline of the current song take over. Before long they’re tangled up in each other, her fingers buried in his hair, their bodies pressed together from shoulder to thigh. It’s almost filthy, the way they move, but it’s no different from the way everyone else is dancing. One song melds into the next.

“What’s your name?” he asks. It’s probably been more than his twenty minute break. He doesn’t entirely care, but he knows he needs to head back to help Suki with final call.

Maybe she senses it, because she turns in his arms and laces her fingers together behind his neck. “Katara,” she says.

Gathering up all the courage he has, he asks, “Can I have your number?”

For a moment she blinks at him. Under the strobe lights her eyes are so blue they’re almost unreal. Giggles burst from her, almost like an afterthought, as she says, “You want to go out with me?”

“Well, yeah,” he says. “You make me want to try out that pick up line. How does it go? Save a drum bang a drummer?”

If anything she laughs louder, harder, one of her hands thumping his shoulder in a mock punch with no real heat behind it. “You can have my number,” she says. Breathlessness edges her words, like she’s trying not to laugh, and he’d take offense except she looks so happy. Pulling her closer, he rests his forehead against hers and feels the drift of their hips. One corner of her mouth kicks up. “But first you have to kiss me.”

Zuko leans down and kisses her. It’s nothing like how they’ve been dancing. Soft and slow, chaste in all the best ways, more like a promise than a dare. Because he likes the way it contrasts to the thumping music and the way it makes her gasp into his mouth so he can swallow up the sound. When he pulls away, she chases after him, so they keep kissing.

Fuck it, Suki can handle last call on her own.


End file.
